Funny, but my eye went right to the pics first, and I thought to myself, "That looks just like Book of Solemnity. Hah!

I actually found myself up there once with Meg as my second; I think she was 15 at the time. It was really freaky leaving her "out there in space" on the first pitch belay ledge, all alone to clean the belay and follow signals with no line of sight.

Maybe because I was protecting it for my own kid, but probably because in my anal retentiveness I would have done it anyway, I placed two pieces before the traverse and then redirected through the anchor bolts as well before tying off near the brink of the slab.

Seconding, she cruised the crux and as soon as she could jam a hand in the following crack she got stung by a couple of yellowjackets. She held on and climbed through, so thankfully we never tested any of the pro.

Funny, but my eye went right to the pics first, and I thought to myself, "That looks just like Book of Solemnity. Hah!

Ha! Yeah, I thought I just had it burned into my memory because of what happened that day, but now that you mention it, it is a fairly unusual end to a climb.

In reply to:

Seconding, she cruised the crux and as soon as she could jam a hand in the following crack she got stung by a couple of yellowjackets. She held on and climbed through, so thankfully we never tested any of the pro.

Well done on her! Especially having been stung! That crux is very tricky - for her to have figured that out on her own at 15 is impressive. Most 15 yr olds would never imagine that you go up and then back down to solve the crux of a climb.

BTW, there were also yellow-jackets in that crack the day I did it. I think there's water seepage at the back, and they go in there to drink it.

Hopefully that will be the effect of the thread, rather than, as implied by notapplicable, an opportunity for catharsis and to falsely convince ourselves that these mistakes are normal. No, they're not. Hopefully, this thread is an unrepresentative sample.

Jay

Hmm... Jay, you know I respect you, but I don't know how better to say this, so I'll just spit it out.

In my opinion, to think that you can have a long career of adventurous climbing and never be saved from your own mistakes by plain old good fortune displays something worse than the ability to make a mistake. It shows plain and simple hubris and overconfidence.

You can stack all the odds in your favor with a full bag of tricks, a good head on your shoulders for solving problems, and a lot of good habits, but... you cannot guarantee that you will never err.

GO

You quoted me out of context. The "these mistakes" I was referring to were in this sentence from my previous post: "I've never made a life-threatening error wrt my climbing equipment." I've certainly made life-threatening judgment errors, but I was talking about the types of equipment errors discussed in the thread (some of which I went on to enumerate). I think you absolutely can go through a "long career of adventure climbing" without ever forgetting to double back your harness, mis-rigging your rappel, or half-tying your tie-in knot, and so on. I think the majority of climbers do go through their careers without making such mistakes. And I can tell you from personal experience that there are plenty of activities where you don't get a second chance after making an equipment error, so you'd better never make one.

Jay

If what you meant us to infer was that some mistakes are more understandable than others, and that there is a range between being stupidly careless about the systems you use every time you go climbing on the one hand; and a rare and understandable judgment error on the other, I would agree with you. But that is not at all how your post came across: thus my post.

Hmm... Jay, you know I respect you, but I don't know how better to say this, so I'll just spit it out.

Respect him? Why? There is no doubt that Jay is very smart in certain fields, but is one of the most disrespectful human beings I've never had the displeasure of meeting and lacks the basic social skills that one learns in preschool.

I think you're confusing the word "respect" with "look up to" - or "like". I'm not saying whether I like him or not, but it's clear that you do not. And for perfectly valid reasons. But do you really need me to enumerate the things he's contributed that are worthy of respect? Or even if you don't value any of his contributions, would you not respect the bulk of the 6'6" 300 lb bouncer in the bar before sniping at him?

In reply to:

In reply to:

In my opinion, to think that you can have a long career of adventurous climbing and never be saved from your own mistakes by plain old good fortune displays something worse than the ability to make a mistake. It shows plain and simple hubris and overconfidence.

You can stack all the odds in your favor with a full bag of tricks, a good head on your shoulders for solving problems, and a lot of good habits, but... you cannot guarantee that you will never err.

GO

Well said.

Josh

Thanks. I still do think what I wrote above is true, whatever Jay may have meant in the post I was responding to notwithstanding.

WOO! That was me! (the 2nd 2nd... i didn't fall) Don't remember hearing about the upside down slab sliding bit though

When you saw Chris start to fall, you must've thought my belay had failed, or something equally terrible! Yeah, you had good incentive not to fall when it was your turn.

G

nah i was right in thinking that your directional on Upper refuse had pulled and the slack went out.

I had incentive not to fall so i didn't take a swinging fall back across the face with no directionals. but that was clearly the better set up. on TR i found the weird step down after the roof harder than the roof section. Having climbed with Meg enough i am not surprised she had no issues with that route either. I bet she didn't have to A0 the P1 slab like i did :P

Hopefully that will be the effect of the thread, rather than, as implied by notapplicable, an opportunity for catharsis and to falsely convince ourselves that these mistakes are normal. No, they're not. Hopefully, this thread is an unrepresentative sample.

Jay

Hmm... Jay, you know I respect you, but I don't know how better to say this, so I'll just spit it out.

In my opinion, to think that you can have a long career of adventurous climbing and never be saved from your own mistakes by plain old good fortune displays something worse than the ability to make a mistake. It shows plain and simple hubris and overconfidence.

You can stack all the odds in your favor with a full bag of tricks, a good head on your shoulders for solving problems, and a lot of good habits, but... you cannot guarantee that you will never err.

GO

You quoted me out of context. The "these mistakes" I was referring to were in this sentence from my previous post: "I've never made a life-threatening error wrt my climbing equipment." I've certainly made life-threatening judgment errors, but I was talking about the types of equipment errors discussed in the thread (some of which I went on to enumerate). I think you absolutely can go through a "long career of adventure climbing" without ever forgetting to double back your harness, mis-rigging your rappel, or half-tying your tie-in knot, and so on. I think the majority of climbers do go through their careers without making such mistakes. And I can tell you from personal experience that there are plenty of activities where you don't get a second chance after making an equipment error, so you'd better never make one.

Jay

If what you meant us to infer was that some mistakes are more understandable than others, and that there is a range between being stupidly careless about the systems you use every time you go climbing on the one hand; and a rare and understandable judgment error on the other, I would agree with you. But that is not at all how your post came across: thus my post.

GO

What I meant was what I said. See the bolded statement. What's so hard to understand?

I think you're confusing the word "respect" with "look up to" - or "like". I'm not saying whether I like him or not, but it's clear that you do not. And for perfectly valid reasons. But do you really need me to enumerate the things he's contributed that are worthy of respect? Or even if you don't value any of his contributions, would you not respect the bulk of the 6'6" 300 lb bouncer in the bar before sniping at him?

No, I am not confusing it. I understand that you can talk about respecting knowledge or valuable content. But when I think of respecting an individual, I am thinking of the whole individual, starting first and foremost with their behavior towards others. That is my standard for respect. If you treat others with disrespect, then you have not earned my respect.

As far as thinking about the bouncer's size before sniping at him, I believe that is survival instinct, not respect.

Hopefully that will be the effect of the thread, rather than, as implied by notapplicable, an opportunity for catharsis and to falsely convince ourselves that these mistakes are normal. No, they're not. Hopefully, this thread is an unrepresentative sample.

Jay

Hmm... Jay, you know I respect you, but I don't know how better to say this, so I'll just spit it out.

In my opinion, to think that you can have a long career of adventurous climbing and never be saved from your own mistakes by plain old good fortune displays something worse than the ability to make a mistake. It shows plain and simple hubris and overconfidence.

You can stack all the odds in your favor with a full bag of tricks, a good head on your shoulders for solving problems, and a lot of good habits, but... you cannot guarantee that you will never err.

GO

You quoted me out of context. The "these mistakes" I was referring to were in this sentence from my previous post: "I've never made a life-threatening error wrt my climbing equipment." I've certainly made life-threatening judgment errors, but I was talking about the types of equipment errors discussed in the thread (some of which I went on to enumerate). I think you absolutely can go through a "long career of adventure climbing" without ever forgetting to double back your harness, mis-rigging your rappel, or half-tying your tie-in knot, and so on. I think the majority of climbers do go through their careers without making such mistakes. And I can tell you from personal experience that there are plenty of activities where you don't get a second chance after making an equipment error, so you'd better never make one.

Jay

If what you meant us to infer was that some mistakes are more understandable than others, and that there is a range between being stupidly careless about the systems you use every time you go climbing on the one hand; and a rare and understandable judgment error on the other, I would agree with you. But that is not at all how your post came across: thus my post.

GO

What I meant was what I said. See the bolded statement. What's so hard to understand?

Jay

There's nothing whatsoever hard to understand in the bolded statement above. There is a temporal issue here you're ignoring. The bolded statement above is not the one I was responding to.

I got told a friend of a friend story some time back. The guy was preparing the top anchor to clean a route but fucked up really bad and clipped to a utility loop. The utility loop gave out but luckily his belay partner kept control, with bad rope burn.

As far as i know utility loops can bare no such weight. For his partner to get rope burn must have ment he took a fall, meaning he did not clip his rope to the anchor after last bolt (or his belay partner was way slacking). I can only figure he pulled up on the anchor directly clipping a quick draw from his harness and forgetting to clip the other biner from the utility loop to the load baring loop. Hell i don't know, how would this happen?.

Anyway, those are just my assumptions. But i have heard about people using quick draws in these kinds of situations even on today's standards. I thought it was a rule of thumb to use a daisy chain/sling and carabiners for this?. At least then your forced to sit onto the rope at the anchor before setting up. It would seem using quick draws for this role offers too much room to short cut the setup, in a bad way.

I got told a friend of a friend story some time back. The guy was preparing the top anchor to clean a route but fucked up really bad and clipped to a utility loop. The utility loop gave out but luckily his belay partner kept control, with bad rope burn.

As far as i know utility loops can bare no such weight. For his partner to get rope burn must have ment he took a fall, meaning he did not clip his rope to the anchor after last bolt (or his belay partner was way slacking). I can only figure he pulled up on the anchor directly clipping a quick draw from his harness and forgetting to clip the other biner from the utility loop to the load baring loop. Hell i don't know, how would this happen?.

Anyway, those are just my assumptions. But i have heard about people using quick draws in these kinds of situations even on today's standards. I thought it was a rule of thumb to use a daisy chain/sling and carabiners for this?. At least then your forced to sit onto the rope at the anchor before setting up. It would seem using quick draws for this role offers too much room to short cut the setup, in a bad way.

Is a utility loop the same thing as a gear loop? It is common practice (and I think a preferred practice) to clean sport routes with nothing but the rope and quick draws. Daisies are for aid and it is my opinion that they have no place in free climbing. A PAS might be acceptable, but is completely unnecessary in my view. I rarely use anything other than the rope and a couple of quickdraws.

Within my circle of climbing partners we have evolved a system whereby the climber looks at the belayer when he is ready to start climbing, and when he makes eye contact, the belayer "yank checks" the grigri and pushes on the gate of the belay carabiner so that both partners know that it is locked. If a new partner doesn't do these two checks upon eye contact (many do—apparently there is convergent evolution), I'll ask them to. Jay

Yup. I'll say something along the lines of "OK, check..." and look directly at my harness buckle and check my knot, then I look at my belayers setup and wait for them to do the same...I've never had to ask, the pause gets it done. After a while with the same partners there's less talking but the process is the same.

I've had some of the things occur like others in this thread.

Back in the days of EB's and no cams, once I was out with a fella who could climb world class good. He and I were taking turns getting competitive leading a crack that wasn't on or in a guidebook. He got up a bit and fell off and was finally lowered. I had watched him sus the moves and got somewhere above his high point and another piece in, maybe 2 feet from where it eases...I was sooooo close. I lowered off totally trashed and pumped and started to untie but my partner was laughing, slapping me on the back and saying with enthusiasm, "Dude, you so got that, get your ass back up there and send it!!!"...so I finished shaking out- chalked and went, looked down before it got too hard and had done a Lynn Hill on the knot which was mostly, but not fully, untied.......dohhh! Tried to downclimb to the piece right below me but was too pumped and had a soft but small fall onto it and it held, fortunately, there was enough of a knot there, long tail hanging down, to keep me off the dirt and I was able to be lowered without dieing.

It made me cautious of world class climbers, so that a few months later I got invited out to do a free attempt on one of the most prized aid lines in the area. On the drive over I asked this partner (different dude), who had brought the rope, how many falls it had on it. He said he didn't know, as someone else had given it too him after they stopped using it (ie they had retired it). He estimated his falls, and wasn't joking, "maybe 200, but they're all small"......I couldn't pull the trigger on the climb.

A person who reads what they want to read.. quotes half of a post interpreted into a way that suits them, is infact projecting?.

Edit - My understanding of the word is not that good i have to confess. So after reading more into it, it would apear you are counter projecting. Considering the majority of your posts are insultive to the person you argue with (to the bitter end), it would seem you have been in this state for quite some time.

A person who reads what they want to read.. quotes half of a post interpreted into a way that suits them, is infact projecting?.

Edit - My understanding of the word is not that good i have to confess. So after reading more into it, it would apear you are counter projecting. Considering the majority of your posts are insultive to the person you argue with (to the bitter end), it would seem you have been in this state for quite some time.

No, the majority of posts to you are insulting. See? you're projecting again.

Can you guys stop writing on my thread... the arguments are getting quite repetitive and are not giving me any more advice. Everyone is entitled to their own opinion and it's not like you guys have to belay each other so there is no point in arguing this any longer. Ian

Ha! That was a little gem of a cautionary tale that I just now caught. As Jason says: "I guess if you climb enough offwidths, one of these days you're gonna get you knee stuck and shit your pants" Classic climbing humor!

I led my first multi-pitch yesterday. Everything went smoothly and we had a blast, until the very end of the day when I tried to pull the ropes at the end of our last rap (two 60 m ropes joined with an EDK). I'm not sure how it happened, but the two strands became twisted and I gave up after pulling 30 feet worth of rope. I scrambled up some easy terrain to reach the free end, put myself back on rappel (with a Kleimheist backup) and then hand-over-hand pulled myself back up the route to reach the twist/tangle, about 60 feet off the deck. Every 3-4 feet I would stop at a solid stance and pull the slack through my rap device, so that any fall would be short. This was a low-angle slabby area; it wasn't like I was jugging up a vertical wall. I used a second ATC to pass the knot and I finally reached the twisted area. I grabbed some rope above and tied a fig-8 on a bight, clipped into that (both strands), and then sorted out the mess below and put myself back on rappel. I also untied the EDK and removed the second rope from the system, since it wasn't really necessary (we were just practicing rapping with two ropes).

Now I was on a single rope but the two strands were uneven, so I spent a few minutes pulling and feeding slack, a couple of feet at a time, through my rap device until I *thought* they were about even. Problem was, the two ends of the rope hung down in a little chimney and I couldn't see them. I should have pulled them up to compare their lengths, but I didn't. I started to rap down, dropped into the chimney, when the backup knot on one strand suddenly appeared in my hand. If I hadn't tied that backup knot, I think it is pretty likely I would have fallen 40 feet to the deck.

I was super pissed at myself because, backup knot or not, I should have been paying closer attention to the ends of the rope. I'm just very fortunate that I had tied the backup knot. I always do it, but I never want to rely on it, you know?

In retrospect, the other mistake that I made was my method of ascending the rope. It was the end of a long day, I was tired, and I sacrificed some margin of safety by pulling myself up the rope and occasionally taking slack out of the rap device. I should have taken the time to rig a prusik and ascend in a safer, albeit slower manner. I doubt a slip would have placed anywhere near enough force to cause the EDK to fail, but I can't say for sure.